Effective isotrivial Mordell-Lang in positive characteristic

Publication date: 16 October 2020

Abstract: The isotrivial Mordell-Lang theorem of Moosa and Scanlon describes the set

X c a p G a m m a

when

X

is a subvariety of a semiabelian variety

G

over a finite field

m a t h b b F_{q}

and

G a m m a

is a finitely generated subgroup of

G

that is invariant under the

q

-power Frobenius endomorphism

F

. That description is here made effective, and extended to arbitrary commutative algebraic groups

G

and arbitrary finitely generated

m a t h b b Z [F]

-submodules

G a m m a

. The approach is to use finite automata to give a concrete description of

X c a p G a m m a

. These methods and results have new applications even when specialised to the case when

G

is an abelian variety over a finite field,

X s u b s e t e q G

a subvariety defined over a function field

K

, and

G a m m a = G (K)

. As an application of the automata-theoretic approach, a dichotomy theorem is established for the growth of the number of points in

X (K)

of bounded height. As an application of the effective description of

X c a p G a m m a

, decision procedures are given for the following three diophantine problems: Is

X (K)

nonempty? Is it infinite? Does it contain an infinite coset?

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